A man chooses, a slave obeys.

Hedonism Week Reflections Part 1

Well, the blogging over the week started off well, but then it suddenly stopped. That’s mainly because we kept running into time crunches. Gotta be HERE at THIS time. Gotta get ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE STRIP by that time. Etc, etc. That, coupled with our sudden desperate desire to “DO ALL THE THINGS”, left me with little time for blogging. So, we opted to take a lotta lotta pictures and just do a blog on bits and pieces here and there later. So, you no longer get a play-by-play, but I’ll share the most enjoyable bits with you all.

There are so many exciting things that we did together on our trip, and I honestly don’t remember the order they were in (Vegas tends to make things a bit hazy), so none of these are in any sort of particular order. Just saying. Let me start off with some of the more interesting cherries I broke in Vegas.

For one:

Going to Vegas itself. I had a bit of a poor impression of the strip from talking to random strangers, Internet folks who had been, and my own Mother. See, Mom loves Vegas. It is her favorite city in the entire world. She’s also a really big gambler. As in, the few times she’s gone to Vegas, she’s brought oatmeal so she doesn’t have to buy breakfast, gambled $200 per day, and not spent any money on shows, meals, etc, eating only when she earned a free buffet at the casino she was staying at. I mean, that’s all fine and dandy, but I’m not a big gambler. I love Bingo (sue me), and I enjoy slots now and then, but the idea of doing nothing but drinking and gambling all day long seemed.. Awful. The random people and Internet told me the only way to have fun in Vegas was to drink heavily and gamble. I don’t mind a bit of drinking and a bit of gambling.. But that just did not sound like my “dream” vacation.

I was astounded by ALL THE THINGS Vegas has to offer. For one, there’s a million-billion shows! TONS of shows. We saw four, and there are more we’d like to see when we go back. We saw all sorts of things. For one, each hotel is its own unique little world! Excalibur was all medieval themed (perfect for us), Circus Circus had all sorts of performers all the time, was carnival themed and (to my joy), had no clowns running amok when we were there. Then there was the Venetian (Venice themed), which has a river running through the middle of the hotel, where you could get a gondola ride, not to mention all the gorgeous scenery. We went to more, but you get the idea.

One other thing about Vegas which surprised me was the street performers. There were so many! Hello Kitty, Chewbacca, Transformers, Michael Jackson, Human Statues, the list goes on. The human statues were my favorite. We were at the Venetian, and we were walking to find the restaurant for dinner, when we came across (what I was sure was) a statue. There was a ton of money in front of it, and I was just staring confused and couldn’t figure out why. As we were passing by, the statue winked at me, and I was so shocked I told Master about it! He told me he knew it was a human statue but joked about how he hadn’t gotten a wink. Heh. =^^=

Zip line!

I have been working for years on my fear of heights. I have blogged about it in the past, though, a lot of my heights fears were crushed before I started writing this blog. Not all of them though. Master made me climb to the top of some playground equipment though once, for example, to help me get over my fear. It’s a work in progress, nothing is ever accomplished over night, but I have taken amazing strides. At one point, I used to be too scared to even walk near the railing in a mall, because you could see down.

Wait, before I get to the zip line itself, I should back up a little bit because the earlier events of the day made zip lining possible. We actually had decided to eat at the McDonald’s that day for breakfast (I say breakfast, but note that we had just gotten up, slightly after noon), and we got our food and sat down. As I was eating the food Master picked out for me, and honestly was just glad to be sitting for a minute (there’s a lot of walking just getting from place to place on the strip), and honestly hadn’t noticed the downpour going on outside. Master groaned and moaned “It’s raining” in his most annoyed voice, and I turned around to look. He wasn’t kidding. We weren’t talking sprinkles.. We were talking flash floods even going on ramps downhill, and severe cold weather. I groaned a little too. It’s not that I’m scared to get wet or anything, but most of the trip had been quite warm (70’s or so), so I hadn’t brought a jacket with me (it was back at the hotel), and I was wearing a short skirt and short sleeve shirt. I knew that we had to run to get to the car, and I knew that we’d need to walk a long way and have to change clothes, etc. We finished our food kind of slowly (hoping the storm might pass), but it didn’t, so we took a deep breath and just ran the fuck out of there.

Drowned rat doesn’t quite cover what I wound up looking like. -.- We stopped mid way for a hot green tea (mainly to keep warm holding it, but also because tasty), and then we ran back out in the rain. I think we spent a total of thirty minutes in the downpour itself, not counting miniature little trips to try to take cover. Did I mention that the power was out on one side of the strip for three or so blocks? And three “strip” blocks is a long distance on foot. It was.. Exciting to say the least. In one of the stores (once we got past the blackout part of the strip) Master picked me up this cute sippy:

It’s a little hard to read in the picture (because there are words on both sides), but it says “Somebody who loves me very much went to Las Vegas and brought me this.” Lol. It’s true, too! I have sadly, yet to use it. I can’t get the top off by myself and so I have to wait for Master to be home to help. Sometimes being a kitty girl is tough. Ha ha.

Anyway, we got back to the hotel, changed our clothes, and headed back out. It was still raining, and the only pants I had brought with me were the sweat pants I wore on my way down. I put those on, grabbed a T-shirt, and lamented my inability to look “cute” for the day. (I brought all sorts of super cute dresses etc to wear for Master’s pleasure. He pointed out he’d rather I go a day in pants than to get sick, so that’s what I did.

Fast forward many hours later, to that night. We decided to go to Freemont street that night. First of all, I was completely shocked by how different it was than the strip! It’s very cool, lots of casinos, neat little places to eat, and WAY more lights than I saw on the strip. That place was lit up like a Christmas tree, and it was so exciting! The strip is something else. To me, Freemont St is almost like a giant concert. Playing that night? Bon Jovi. Pretty cool, huh?

One of the first things I saw (aside from the lights) when we got to Freemont street was the zip lines!

“Master!! Can kitty go zipper?! Kitty wants to ZIPPER?!”

It was the first thing I had flat out asked Master for on the trip. I mean, I told him when I was hungry, and I answered his questions honestly if he asked if I wanted something, but this was the first time I, on my own, asked him for something. He answered that he was going to give me $5 to play in the slot machines, and if I won enough in winnings to go on the zip line, he would take me. Of course, he was also shocked that I even wanted to go. The zip lines on Freemont street were a lot closer to the ground than any other zip lines I had seen, and I thought it looked fun. Plus, I’d done high ropes courses before, and I knew that those cables are made to withstand the weight of a car. Seeing as how I am nowhere close to that, I knew I was safe.

And so, Master gived kitty a fiver, and kitty found her lucky “Lord Of The Rings” machine that she had played in many a casino already. I put in the fiver, I took out a twenty (woo! I won!), and Master exclaimed:

“Good job kitty! Let’s go get you on the zipper!”

I was so excited. We got in line (which was the longest part) to get our ticket, and there was this really adorable couple of old ladies in front of me. If they could do it, I knew I could do it! <3 I signed the waiver that says that I agree if I die it’s not their fault (but really, the chances of that are just so low, anyway), and I jumped in line to get my harness and get up to the zip lines themselves.

Of course, this being Las Vegas, and me being alone (Master was only allowed with me up to a certain point to the zip lines. He wasn’t going on it himself), I had to know that some crazy drunk chick was going to latch on to me. I was just standing there, waiting for my harness to be fitted, when some woman who I had never met grabbed my arm and yelled “You’re going with me, right?!” I was kind of stunned, and didn’t know what to do, so I just let her hang on to me. Thankfully when I got up into the section where you are sent to go down the actual zip line, the men made her separate from me, because only one person goes on the zip line at a time. I got on the little ladder. I grabbed on tight, the guy assigned to me asked if I was ready, I mewed:

“YEAH!”

And he flung me down the line!! I was terrified. Absolute fear pulsed through me. Looking down, I was sure I was going to plummet to my death, even though I knew that there were all sorts of safety measures involved to prevent that. I wanted to get off. Knowing that wasn’t an option, I dug deep inside and realized, “Well, I’m stuck here. I might as well just enjoy the terror that comes with.” And, I screamed. Not a scream like that from a horror movie, but more the type of scream you get when your favorite rock band gets on stage. Pure. Fucking. Freedom. Screw you, fear. I have won, and you can’t do anything about it. I thought I was on the line for an eternity, and also for no time at all. It was surreal. Master got a clip of the whole thing, and it’s seven seconds long. No joke. Seven seconds.

On my way down the stairs, I heard “We Are The Champions” come on overhead. Ha ha. Perfect. I raised my arms in victory and hugged Master for dear life. I had won. Even now, he keeps telling me how proud of me he was. I wanna go again! Maybe someday. <3